Four things they didn't know about Leo Valdez
by PinkBunnysWillRuleTheWorld
Summary: Four things they didn't know about Leo Valdez, and one thing they knew beyond a doubt.


Four things The Seven didn't know about Leo Valdez, and the one thing they Knew For Sure

A/N: Leo is my favorite character because he is just so complex and in a lot of ways a his solutions and quick thinking seem on par with Annabeth's. But he is also funny and interesting, which made me want to have the world know how funny and interesting he is.

I DO NOT OWN anything written by Rick Riordan.

He's a Genius

Yes they were all aware that he was a quick talking mechanic who created one of the most masterful pieces of technology either camp had seen in over a hundred years. They knew he had technological genius, I mean he was after all Hephaestus's son. What they didn't know was that he is an honest to goodness, MENSA member genius, his IQ reaching well above average.

Annabeth was the first to realize this fact, since she spent the most time with him prepping the ship for their journey to New Rome.

"We need a lot of celestial bronze for this Leo," she said.

"How much is "a lot"?" His voice wasn't the voice he normally used in camp; the happy, excited, flirty voice that he often talked to his friends in. This was Mechanic Leo voice. Serious and low, he spoke quickly and frequently caught fire.

"Well we're making a warship that is eighteen feet tall, seventy feet wide and has a length of fifty feet… So that makes it's volume…" she reached into my backpack to get a calculator but as it turns out she didn't need one.

"Okay so that means it has a volume of 63,000 cubic feet…" He said ignoring her look of shock, "but that isn't factoring in the fact that is irregularly shaped… and the fact that it won't be solid celestial gold through its volume. But for now I'll go place an order for that and use the excess to make fun weapons!"

The majority of his speech wasn't directed to her, he was staring intently at the paper in front of him trying to fully work out design and circuitry.

None of them knew for sure though, until one day Percy stole Leo's wallet while they were on their way to Rome. Though it was stressful, they occasionally had relaxing moments when they would tease each other and generally behave more naturally. This was one of those times.

"Oh come on Water Whisperer! Give it back," Leo said as he chased Percy around the ship. The other demigods smiled and laughed at their silliness.

"Oh what secrets do you have in here, Repair boy?" Percy said with a smirk and opened the wallet. It was generally pretty barren, just an ID and a picture of his mother…. And…

"What is this?" Percy said with real curiosity this time.

"What?" Now all the demigods were gathered around Percy who was looking at a card with an odd expression.

Piper gasped, Jason looked moderately surprised, Frank shook his head like he couldn't believe his luck but Hazel looked confused.

"What's a MENSA? And why is it a big deal?" She asked shaking her curly hair out of her face.

"MENSA," Annabeth began with a jealous look on her face, "is a community of people who have scored in at least the ninety-eight percentile for the IQ test."

This caused everyone to look at Leo, who was currently looking at the ground and turning a cherry red color, even his hair was on fire.

He looked up and saw that they were all asking for an explanation, "When I was a little kid," he began, "teachers would always think I was really slow because of the whole dyslexia and ADHD thing I had going for me. They said I held up the class with my behavior… So they told my mother to get an IQ test done. An IQ test is basically a whole bunch of patterns and solving problems, and as a son of Hephaestus that is what I do, so… Yeah," he finished finally.

"I bet your mom was really please," Jason said giving the wallet back.

"Oh yeah, over the moon. She was so excited she paid for my membership in MENSA until I turn eighteen. Hispanic moms are sassy, you should have seen her when she handed my results to the principle," Leo smiled at the memory of his mother.

"Hey Leo?"

"Yeah Annabeth?"

"What's 4248 divided by .025?"

Leo groaned, "169,920."

Then the other six demigods smirked… And started playing their new favorite game… 'Pester the Genius.'

2. He is an excellent dancer

This one Leo shared openly with them as soon as they got on the ship. They were flying towards Rome and Leo had been working himself to the bone. Checking things over and over again every second of the day and night, he looked like he hadn't slept in days. So when he finally decided to take a break no one, not even Annabeth, called him on it.

"We are going to have a dance fiesta mis amigos," he said smiling broadly as he walked out of the engine room.

"A dance party…?" Frank said looking scared. He was already a clumsy man, the last thing he needed was for his friends to make fun of his lack of skill on the dance floor.

"We need to relax man, don't worry your buddy Leo is an awesome dancer," he said jokingly and pulled Piper towards him.

He glanced backwards and snapped his fingers. Suddenly a fast paced salsa was playing and he started dancing.

Piper initially had a hard time keeping up, but Leo was a good lead. He took her smoothly from the traditional salsa steps to out spins without even breaking a sweat. Soon they looked smooth and down right sexy on the dance floor moving in sync with one another. Piper, the other seven realized quickly, had an increased ability to learn dances due to her mother's blood.

Eventually the other demigods looked like they wanted to try, so he taught them. He was patient with them and soon they were all laughing and dancing to fast paced Spanish music.

"I didn't know you could dance, man," Jason said.

"I'm multitalented, this should come as no surprise," Leo said and winked at his friend, "Don't worry though. I just picked Piper because I figured she would be the fastest one to pick the dance up."

Jason looked moderately relieved that he didn't have to beat up his best friend, and then he walked back into Piper's arms.

It was good, Leo thought, to have such good friends.

He was a foul mouth… In Spanish

No one noticed this one until well after Gaea was defeated. After all no one on the ship spoke Spanish and so it was hardly a problem. However once they got to New Rome, problems suddenly arose.

The Praetor of Rome, Reyna, is Puerto Rican. Granted she hadn't lived in Puerto Rico for much of her life, but she still spoke fluently enough to recognize curse words when she heard them.

Leo had grown used to being able to curse as loudly and as violently as he wanted, because no one around him understood a single thing. So he got cocky, and really didn't expect the icy cold, beautiful woman from Rome to know a word of Spanish.

It was really Festus's fault. If he hadn't broken down, Leo could have kept his secret to the grave, but alas Festus did. The damned ship broke down at the worst possible time too, they were giving Reyna and Octavian a tour of the ship and showing off all the amazing features Leo had included… When suddenly the boat started to shake.

"Hijo de puta," he said loudly as he went and tried to fix it, he was rather vocal when he was working so none of them thought anything of it.

"Me cago en tus muertos," he screamed. Reyna at this point was blushing like a virgin bride.

"God," Reyna said to the other demigods, "has he always been this much of a foul mouth…"

Right at that very moment Leo seemed to have dropped something on himself and swore, "Joder!"

"What are you talking about Reyna?" Annabeth asked.

"Do you guys… Oh yes of course. Its in Spanish and you don't speak Spanish. Your lovely Rome bombing friend has quite a colorful vocabulary. I'm surprised, considering your Greek tendency to be pure with language."

When Leo finally came out, the ship was fixed but his friends were giving him funny looks.

"Hey guys, what's going on?"

"Leo…. What do you say in Spanish when you're working?" Percy asked with a dangerous smirk on his face.

"Nothing, just some old Spanish proverbs," Leo said smoothly before taking a washcloth to clean the grease off his hands.

"I don't know what Spanish you speak, Valdez. But where I come from, those are no proverbs," Reyna said. Leo stopped short and realized that there was another Spanish speaker in the room. He blushed and his ears started to catch fire.

"Uhh… I'm going to go see New Rome now. Bye!"

Translation:

Hijo de puta: Son of a bitch

Me cago en tus muertos: I shit on your dead relatives

Joder: Fuck

He knows Morse Code

Jason had the largest hint on this one, after all he had seen Leo speak to the dragon. But Jason is an idiot, he just assumed that because he is the son of the god of Forge he can speak to any technological device.

Strangely enough it was Nico who first noticed this about his new friends. After Annabeth and Percy fell into Tartarus everyone was a bit shaken up. For the most part Leo tried his best to seem as if he had no problems at all, and smiled and laughed as if something horrific hadn't just happened.

But the rest of the crew still knew he was taking it worse than anyone else, he stopped sleeping all together and began focusing with unbridled intensity on the ship and updating it with the spheres. He worked day and night until finally Jason snapped.

"We know you miss them Leo! But killing yourself won't make this any better," Jason screamed, "please. Please eat, please sleep… I'm worried. You're my best friend. Losing you… We can't lose you. You're too important."

After that little break down, things improved. Leo still worked morning, noon and night. But he came out from time to time, he ate with the rest of them and for a while no one noticed he was doing anything odd. That is, until Nico pointed it out.

First Nico noticed that Leo was constantly tapping his fingers. It was the same pattern, over and over and over again. It was starting to grate on Nico, what did it mean? Why was he doing that? So in irritation, he googled the pattern and jerked back once he realized what it was.

_I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…_

That's what Leo was tapping. Every second he was awake; he was tapping "I'm sorry" to his lost friends. His heart went out to the boy who had lost so much at a young age. Nico knew the second he saw him, Leo's mother flashed before his eyes and he knew she was dead.

He later told the rest of the gang, and at first they were sad and sorry before Jason started smiling.

"God… Is there anything that Leo can't speak?"

This caused the rest to chuckle sadly.

"Seriously, Morse code? Salsa? Talk about a multitalented kid," Frank said smiling.

"Are you guys talking about me?" Leo said a rag flipped over his shoulder, "I realize I'm beautiful. But come on guys, have some dignity."

The others just smiled and returned to their preparation for war, but they all suddenly started tapping together.

_I need you… I need you… I need you… I need you…_

It took Leo a few minutes to realize what they were tapping, but once he did he smiled and his big brown eyes filled with tears of happiness. Before he left he tapped something quickly on the kitchen table, but not a single member in the room missed it.

_I love you… I love you… _

And what they All Knew….

To say this out loud would be to waste words. Every single member of the team knew this about Leo Valdez beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had their backs. He wasn't the best fighter, not that he had been given an opportunity. Sent out on a mission with next to no training he had been forced to figure out how to use a hammer as a fighting utensil on the job. His lack of battle experience wasn't a real hindrance though, because of his incredible ability to think on the spot. He always managed to come up with a clever way to get them out of trouble, he was so clever that even Annabeth often praised him for his Athena like thinking.

They also knew that he needed love and support more than any member of the team. He had never had a team before and was liable to bail if he didn't have something worth sticking around for. The other six members all agreed that they would try to be good to Leo, and they were. They teased him and didn't treat him any different from the other members, and that was more than good enough for Leo.

His loyalty though, as it turns out, was the one that they regretted at the moment. They were hovering over the body of Leo Valdez, which was currently creating a pool of blood.

Leo had been in the back, per usual, standing near electrical equipment trying to great a weapon of mass destruction for his enemies when he noticed something that made his blood run cold. He saw an Earthborn holding what looked like a missile launcher towards his friends. They were all standing close together and would all be in range from the impact. He didn't have much time to think, but he knew that his only option was to try and intercept it. He was immune to the heat, and hopefully the speed wouldn't be too fast.

He ran to his friends and yelled for them to duck. He took a moment to appreciate that all his friends had in fact, ducked. They heard him and trusted him, and that was enough to warm Leo's heart.

He faced the missile with a firm face and grabbed it. It was large and fast and hurting his hands more than anything. Soon he felt blood due to friction of rotation. At another time he might want to calculate the friction acting on his hands, but he knew this wasn't the time.

He tried to redirect the missile but he noticed something else. A timer. A timer that was set to blow in two seconds, so he did what any self-respecting person would do. He "flamed on" reducing his entire body to white hot flames. His friends shuffled back from him, so they wouldn't get burnt. As the bomb exploded he hoped that he was hot enough that the metal would melt before hitting his skin. For the most part he had been right, the shrapnel more or less melted as soon as it touched his flames, creating a liquid metal half circle around him.

But staying that hot… It's a lot of energy. And he quickly began cooling down and one last piece of shrapnel hit his stomach.

"Quick! Ambrosia, nectar," he heard Percy yell.

He faded out, and when he woke up he was on the Argo II in his bed. He opened his eyes and saw all of his friends hovering worriedly around his bed. As soon as he woke up they all began cheering and smiling, and that was enough to make Leo's day.

And in the end that was the one thing they knew about Leo Valdez, he was the best among heroes.


End file.
